Friday, May 24, 2013

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel seems to make exactly that point in this WSJ opinion piece.

Quoting Dr. Emanuel :

"Here is the specific problem: Insurance companies worry that young
people, especially young men, already think they are invincible, and
they are bewildered about the health-care reform in general and
exchanges in particular. They may tune out, forego purchasing health
insurance and opt to pay a penalty instead when their taxes come due. The consequence would be a
disproportionate number of older and sicker people purchasing insurance,
which will raise insurance premiums and, in turn, discourage more
people from enrolling. This reluctance to enroll would damage a key
aspect of reform."

Dr. Emanuel goes on with this bit of wishful thinking.

"... The president connects with young people, too, so he needs to use that
bond and get out there to convince them to sign up for health insurance
to help this central part of his legacy....

Second, we need to make clear as a society that buying insurance is part
of individual responsibility. If you don't have insurance and you need
to go to the emergency room or unexpectedly get diagnosed with cancer,
you are free- riding on others."

Question for the day. How often have mammoth ,disruptive and costly social programs succeed on the basis of exhorting people to do the "right thing"? Is this a sign of desperation on the part of the diminishing number of vocal advocates for Obamacare that they resort to a plea for some to act mainly in the interest of others?

Plans and schemes that ignore the persistent and widespread tendency of humans to act in their own self interest have seldom enjoyed lasting success.

Mises and Hayek in their efforts in the Socialist Calculation debate emphasized that central planing would fail because of two problems;the knowledge problem and the incentive problem. Planning would fail in the absence of the guidance from prices derived from the free market and because of the inherent persistent characteristic of humans to act in their own self interest. The history of the 20th century should have made clear to all but the clueless that depending on the transformation of human nature for something to work was not a viable plan.

h/t to Dr. Paul Hsieh for his insightful, recent commentary in PJ Media ("Is Obamacare's Fatal Flaw taking effect?") in which he discusses Emmanuel's essay as well as other developments strongly suggesting that Obamacare is unraveling before it is fully implemented as increasing number of former supporters seem to be jumping ship.See here.

Monday, May 13, 2013

"It
will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by those they
elected, if laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent
that they cannot be understood."James Madison, Federalist no. 62.

According to this source while the House bill and the Senate version contained over 2,000 pages a PDF file of the final law has "only" 906 pages.I could find no link attempting to quantify its incoherence.